Mental health support for our protectors after every shift.
An evidenced-based approach to wellbeing for frontline workers.
Unlocking Resilience, Reviving Spirits
Those who serve on the frontlines carry burdens well beyond their shifts.
At Shift Change, we exist to lighten this load, ensuring that nurses, doctors, first responders, emergency workers, community and employment frontline workers have a supportive place to unburden their hearts and minds after every shift, so they never have to carry the day's trauma home.
Our evidence-based, World Health Organization-endorsed approach is designed to provide online mental health support to meet the intense demands of high-stakes professions.
Our why
Our mission is to develop a support system so responsive that it becomes a haven for our protectors; an environment where they can unburden their hearts and receive the care they deserve, creating a legacy of healing that will benefit generations to come.
The cost of inadequate mental health support for first responders…
Decreased Productivity
Increased Risk of Suicide
Poor Social Interactions
Cost of workplace disability leave for mental illness compared to physical illness.
50% or more
Number of first responders in Canada who will experience mental illness in any given year.
1 in 5
Rate of PTSD among nurses, paramedics, police officers, firefighters and military personnel.
Up to 57%
Impactful EMDR group therapy for frontline workers that’s backed by neuroscience and endorsed by the World Health Organization.
HOSPITALS | FIRE DEPARTMENTS | EMERGENCY SERVICES | COMMUNITY AND EMPLOYMENT WORKERS
Our Services
At Shift Change, we facilitate online mental health support for emergency workers.
Statistics show a marked decrease in the progression to chronic PTSD when a traumatic event can be reprocessed through EMDR within 90 days, which is why we provide options to help you process your experiences after any—or every—shift.
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Our EMDR group protocol, known as the ASSYST Group Intervention, is a 1-hour online session guided by a EMDR certified therapist. You’ll be able to see the faces of your fellow participants, however all personal information is withheld. During the session you’ll follow a series of prompts from your therapist to help process the memory or experience that has been stressful or traumatic. As EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, such as body tapping, rather than speaking, there is no risk of sharing confidential information.
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Our EMDR group protocol, known as the ASSYST Group Intervention, is a 1-hour online session guided by an EMDR certified therapist. We use state-of-the-art technology so you can participate as part of a group without needing to show your face to the group. Only the therapist will see you. During the session you’ll follow a series of prompts from your therapist to help process the memory or experience that has been stressful or traumatic. As EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, such as body tapping, rather than speaking, there is no risk of sharing confidential information.
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Of the 10-20% of individuals who require further support following the ASSYST Group Intervention, Shift Change facilitates this with Individualized EMDR Sessions. Our 1:1 online EMDR therapy sessions with registered clincial counsellors help individuals to continue to efficiently process and recover from traumatic experiences.
How to work with Shift Change
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Reach out today and we’ll customize a therapy offering unique to your organization, or provide individualized access to our online group therapy.
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We’ll facilitate an in-person or virtual orientation to give you a sense of what EMDR group therapy is and how sessions work, so you feel confident logging on to join.
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Shift Change facilitates online EMDR group therapy as often as needed. You can choose the frequency for your organization.
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In as little as one session, you’ll notice a reduction in stress levels and trauma symptoms, and increased resilience to persevere in the face of challenges you face every day.
The Impact of Shift Change
Adapted from Rolf C. Carriere - Scaling Up What Works: Using EMDR to Help Confront the World’s Burden of Traumatic Stress
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Identified and Anonymous Options: 1-hour Session
Participants engage in a therapist-guided process with minimal verbal interaction. Using body tapping and other bilateral stimulations to help process stressful experiences, this approach is tailored for individuals with mild to moderate stress symptoms. The Acute Stress Syndrome Stabilization Treatment (ASSYST) is designed to ground participants and reduce the likelihood of more complex trauma reactions, effectively addressing acute stress early to prevent the development of more severe conditions. This low-intensity treatment is expected to be sufficient for most clients.
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Identified and Anonymous Options: 1-Day Session
This specialized, high-intensity treatment is reserved for those with more severe symptoms or who do not respond to low-intensity care. The EMDR Integrative Group Treatment Protocol for Ongoing Traumatic Stress (EMDR-IGTP) was the first group EMDR intervention developed in the world and utilizes art therapy and the butterfly hug, where each person administers bilateral stimulation in the form of tapping, to reprocess traumatic events. Facilitated in smaller groups, this protocol allows for the group administration of individual EMDR treatment.
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1:1 Session with a Therapist: 1-Hour Session
For those who need more personalized support following a high-intensity group therapy session, our one-on-one sessions provide deeper intervention tailored to individual experiences. The EMDR Protocol for Recent Critical Incidents and Ongoing Traumatic Stress (EMDR-PRECI) is an evidence-based, individual protocol that uses eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to treat acute trauma, ongoing traumatic stress and prolonged adverse experiences that often result in PTSD.
Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.
When we understand how trauma is stored in the brain and body, we realise we can’t out-talk or simply ignore the distress.
Facilitated in groups, online. Choose from identified or anonymous.
Helps reprocess stress & trauma without talking aloud.
Effective in as little as one group session.
Lead by highly-qualified specialists.
Are you ready to enhance your team's resilience and well-being?
As a team leader, you have the power to initiate change and bring invaluable mental health support to your group.
Book a discovery call with us today for a custom quote tailored specifically to your people’s needs so you can start to make a meaningful difference in your team's daily life and long-term health.
The proof is in the data.
Multiple controlled outcome studies and research papers on EMDR therapy have shown:
Positive effects of EMDR therapy in the treatment of emotional trauma and other adverse life experiences. Source
Seven of 10 studies reported EMDR therapy to be more rapid and/or more effective than trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy. Source
With EMDR, the world now has a new efficient and effective therapy against the damaging effects of traumatic stress, one proven to be quick, low-cost, and widely applicable in a range of crisis settings and cultural milieus. Source